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Monday, May 5, 2008

Wildflower 2008 Olympic

Yesterday, I competed in the Avia Wildflower Olympic Distance triathlon in my quest to prepare for the USAT World Championships in 1 month. I need all the practice I can get racing FAST, as I will be getting into Ironman shape come mid June, preparing for IM UK, which will be here before we know it.

Both my coach (Rachel) and I are doing Worlds, so we both decided to do WF. My goal for WF was to finish higher than 4th place. I knew better to not set a "time" to beat (2:36:52) of last year, but to beat my place. I knew that the course was probably very similar, so I would need a solid strategy prior to my start in order to race strong and positive.

Swim start was interesting this time. I had all the proper nutrition prior to the race, and everything started pretty normal. I went off really quickly, and I think I might have gone out too fast. I literally had a bit of a freak out in the water, which is not like me at all. Swimming is very "easy" for me, so I was shocked that this was happening. But, after 4 mins or so, I settled in and relaxed a bit, but for the first min or so, I was thinking "this is not fun, I want to stop." I found some feet to draft off of at the turn around, so I hitched a ride in and finished my swim 2 mins faster than last year- in about 22 mins.

The bike felt really good this year. I took it a bit easy on the hills and really focused on steady spinning and not grinding too much. Not 1 chick passed me on the bike, and I could only hope that I was 3rd or 4th out of the water. But, still not sure where I was. Didn't see many women ahead of me..

The run was awesome again this year. Each event kept getting stronger and I was now just warming up. I knew I had as strong run last year- but, this year- not sure if I was going to beat it. But, I ended up running 1 and a half minutes faster this year. (I compared my splits below). I ended up running just under 7-min miles for the 10K, which I am very excited about. I had some slower transitions this year, so I can get better at that for sure. I was also excited about my sprint finish, that put me ahead of the 4th place woman in my AG by only 20 secs or so. It was an exciting finish for me, and I finished with a lot of confidence in those regards. Great race overall- congrats to Rachel and Jason for also meeting their goals, and Kim for a great half-ironman race on Saturday!